Who Has the Most Stressful Job in Your Office? You Might Be Surprised

Many people believe they have a stressful job, but a new survey shows that information technology administrators may have it the worst. That's because stress has caused almost 70 percent of IT professionals to say they've consider changing careers. Additionally, nearly 85 percent of respondents felt that this stress affected their personal life in some way.

Nearly 40 percent of workers reported working at least eight hours or more of overtime a week, which averaged out to nearly 10 extra weeks of work a year. According to IT professionals, the demands of their job caused them to lose sleep, miss social functions and miss time with their kids. Additionally, nearly one-quarter of respondents said that stress caused at work led them to feel physically ill and one in five respondents said that they experienced health-related issues such as high blood pressure due to the stresses of their job.

"IT is a critical component of a company's success, yet many small and medium-size businesses, particularly those with between 50 and 100 employees, are not equipping IT managers with the budget, staffing and resources they need to be effective," said Phil Bousfield, general manager of GFI Software's infrastructure business unit. "Not only is this creating a high-stress environment for IT administrators to operate in, but as evidenced by the survey results, it's also resulting in long overtime hours and impacting their professional and personal lives."

IT professionals were able to identify the source of this stress easily. According to the poll, management, tight deadlines and employees were the top three causes of stress. Workers were most stressed in the northeast and at companies with between 50 and 99 employees. At companies that size, nearly 85 percent of IT professionals reported being stressed.

"Small-and medium-size businesses need to take these findings as a wake-up call, and ensure their IT staff is supported, productive and armed with the tools they need to be successful," Bousfield said. "Doing so will deliver business value and help IT administrators have a better work-life balance."

The information in this survey was based on the responses of 204 IT administrators at organizations with between 10 and 500 or more employees. The research was conducted for GFI Software, a provider of IT solutions to small-and medium-size businesses, by Opinion Matters.